World Clock and Dashboard for Planet Earth

Very cool. Check it out.  From the Spirit of Now, by Peter Russell.

Comments

[O Lucky Man]

People aren't dying fast enough (at least on my machine.) Which candidate is in favor of that?

[Phil]

You must have a slow processor.

[bUM fREE]

rE the whole enchilada

How best to demonstrate the essential elements and their interrelationships, do you think? Statistics and books, essays? Static graphics?

An honest question, I don't pretend to know the answer. I know my capacity and will to understand the system holistically via books and essays is limited. Graphics and flow graphics are better for me. But I always puzzled at why some type of dynamic 3d models were not attempted. Actually it seemed unlikely to me that they hadn't been attempted, then I remembered a description of Buckminster Fuller's "World Game" I had read back in the 70's...

...now evolved to o.s.earth, it seems

Notes/impressions while browsing the site:

Presumes that sovereignty exists and that no global "fix" is in, no undercurrent, no sub rosa dealings -- all the elements are considered legitimate and independently effective. Type of government is not represented, autocracy versus a genuine democracy, for instance. All the players seem to be "actors", people whose actions will have some impact on their region and the world. Managing a democracy is not addressed, apparently.

What about a World Game from the perspective of the governed, the "variably empowered", or better yet, strictly from the perspective of the unempowered. How best do they better their lot?

It would be interesting to watch real-world powerful people play that game among themselves, too.

From a slideshow on the site:

We've got resources!

In a Global Simulation, cards representing resources such as workers, consumers, land, and minerals. Their distribution in the game corresponds to the real world.

Yikes, Bucky, you're killin' me here...

What's it like to govern the world. ↔ What's it like to *be* governed and develop some independence and empowerment.

The shadow knows...

[Phil]

Play Wealth Bondage as a simulation game. Everyone gets a starter supply 100 cubicle slaves, one congressman, one newspaper, one radio station, one think tank, one gifted speechwriter, and a $10 million inheritance or savings account. The goal is to dominate the earth in order to save it.

[Un Autre Singe]

Play Wealth Bondage as a simulation game. Everyone gets a starter supply 100 cubicle slaves, one congressman, one newspaper, one radio station, one think tank, one gifted speechwriter, and a $10 million inheritance or savings account. The goal is to dominate the earth in order to save it

Does one have to play by the "rules", that is aim for the goal ?

With all that stuff ... people and resources ... I can think of lots of ways to fend for me and my family and friends, make the resources stretch out over our lifetimes, and say good riddance to to the suggested game. I'll just save my little corner of the earth (isn't that what we are all being forced to worry about anyway ?)

[Un Autre Singe]

Brian Eno co-created The Long Now Foundation with Stewart Brand and Peter Scghwartz, I believe.

Eno has also offered, in the past, a set of Oblique Strategies, intended to help sort out ambiguous situations and issues that demand more than simple answers.

[Cackety Dishwitz]

Can we really trust a bald guy? I mean we can trust us, but can we really trust a bald guy we don't know?

[Phil]

"Every line has two sides." And remember, "Be dirty." "Get yours first," that is also good advice.

[O Lucky Man]

Hey Dishwitz, here's one for you:

Can we really trust a dumb guy?

Concentrate.

[O Lucky Man]

Interesting, UAS. I closed my eyes and asked Brian and pals "What the fuck?" with respect to this. They came back with:

Destroy -nothing -the most important thing

I suspect the boys in the article have been pulling Phil's cards from a deck called "Acute Strategies"* instead. Much smaller deck , much greater impact, I'm afraid.

* If you want a paradox, it might actually be a compound: acuteobtuse

[A Serious Babe]

Pix from an artist:

Revisiting the productive polarity of the "two kings" relationship: Parzival and Arthur; center and periphery; the Grail and the Round Table; artistic inspiration and the world economy; individual and community.

IDRIART -- a non-profit organization founded in 1981 by Miha Pogacnik, violinist and cultural ambassador of Slovenia -- follows a dynamic principle - that artists and their audiences purposefully travel throughout the world and gather in places that really need them. In these ["crisis areas"] IDRIART can take the initiative to intervene in political, social and cultural situations. Thus, IDRIART has been working in synchronistic ways within the global stream of awakening and radical change. IDRIART has produced with local hosts, more then 140 festivals around the world.

[..]

What is a HUMAN BEING, where is the threshold, what kind of environment would reveal the true nature of being human? This is the story of IDRIART, the search for the ART OF MEETING, beyond races, cultures and religions. With the intensity and urgency of making and perceiving Art, we reach beyond our "usual self." Actively, consciously participating in the unfolding complexity and beauty, in tensions and resolutions, in meaning and more meaning, we exit at the other end of the masterpiece with all too quickly perishable precious new eyes and ears: for THAT dimension of human being, which is none and all of us -- BECOMING.

[..]

Does living in the all-prevailing global economic society mean "working for money?" "Making war to achieve peace?" To engage truly in the act of Art means: doing it for love of it, period. Here is something to learn from the Arts: to learn how to bring means and ends together, to strive with "inner jihad" towards becoming a whole human being. The time has come for the muses to step out of museum and teach us the Art of interdisciplinary modes of being; how to bring the obvious "daily bread" of the true artist: mobility, creativity, inspiration, enthusiasm, love, charisma and perhaps a token of "productive resignation" (Goethe) to the every aspect of life, including business. And here is the guiding star for the artist - cultural entrepreneur: "good is not good enough - only genius counts!"

[..]

Miha Pogacnik is a diplomat, violinist, composer, business consultant, visionary and genius. His gift is the ability to harness The Arts for the benefit of business. New ways of thinking and understanding are communicated via the violin in a way, which is difficult to describe on paper, but has prompted radical change in organisations seeking sustainable growth.

---

Parzival | Arthur

The Holy Zero Point
 

[Un Autre Singe]

Thanks, O Lucky Man, for the article by Gabriel Kolko.

[Phil]

Blogged the links to Miha.

[O Lucky Man]

UAS

A friendly minstrel dropped it at my door. Pretty good picker, too. ;-)

[Phil]

Yes, he is a great source of unexpected links.